The Actual Account of Peter Able

by Natalie Grigson

  I was still mulling this over when we arrived at the Math Building. The whole place was blocked off by yellow police tape blowing loosely in the cold wind and surrounded by black and white cars, lights flashing silently against the darkening sky.

  “Bonnie,” Randy said loudly over the howling wind. He doffed his detective hat, which he seemed to have put on just for that moment. He took it off and stuffed it into his coat pocket still watching Bob’s girlfriend, Bonnie the Fig Tree, carefully.

  “Hi, Bonnie,” I said. Her leaves were blowing about wildly, a few came off and flew away even as we stood in front of the castle-like building. “Let’s go inside, okay?” I asked, looking from Bonnie to Randy. He nodded curtly and ripped away some of the yellow tape in front of the door, and then held it open for us. Silently, Bonnie swiveled her clay pot back and forth until she made her way through the open door and into the rather plain-looking lobby. I’d never been in there before, but it struck me as similar to the Science Building’s lobby: a wooden bench with a long, thin cushion on top against one wall, bookshelves housing text books, books on theory; a receptionist’s desk, which at the moment was vacated, and beside it, a ficus tree. An actual ficus tree.

  “It’s just so awful, isn’t it?” Bonnie whimpered from next to me. She, like Bob, didn’t speak from a mouth (after all, even in Fiction, most trees don’t have faces), but I could imagine the anguish that would have been on hers if she did.

  Randy stepped closer to the ficus cautiously. I stayed put. Like all things from the Real World—and I hate to say it, but that is just what Bob had become; another thing from the real world—the tree was emanating an otherworldly sort of current. The air buzzed with it. I felt contaminated by it. And yet—somewhere in there, was Bob. Still.

  “I don’t understand how she’s doing this,” Randy finally said after examining the tree’s leaves (which were similar in shape to Bob’s, but not nearly as vibrant, and were torn, brown, and crispy in places.) “She’s not getting through the wardrobe, and neither is anybody else.”

  “What do you mean? Nobody is going through the wardrobe anymore?”

  Randy shook his head, hands on hips, still looking at the ficus tree. “No, I put a temporary hold on all business in Narnia. No one goes in or out, unless I personally escort them.”

  I was looking, not at the tree, but at Randy. I’d had no idea he had so much sway in the Detective Genre.

  “Well, I didn’t want another ? sort of situation again, did I?” he said a little embarrassedly.

  Behind me, Bonnie was making choking noises in between hiccups. When I turned around, I saw that sap was streaming, slowly and stickily, down her trunk. She was crying.

  “We’re going to do something about this,” I said, sticking out an arm to—what? Put on her shoulder? I swung it up instead and scratched behind my ear. Slick. “We’re going to figure out how to change him back, Bonnie.”

  Randy cleared his throat, probably indicating that I shouldn’t outright lie to the poor plant, as I had no real reason for believing this was possible; but there was no stopping me. I was a Fictional Character with a plan, and if I’d learned anything from my first year at Fiction Academy, it was that we characters have much more power in our own stories than we give ourselves credit. Our authors may be the ones typing these things, but we’re the ones who inspire them.

  “We’re going to go out there and stop Destiny from doing this to any other characters—and get all the erased characters rewritten, and get Bob and Alan back to being Fictional.”

  “And go to In-N-Out Burger!”

  “Who keeps saying that?” Randy asked, looking around the room. We were the only three in there.

  “We’re going to do all of these things, Bonnie, because I said so—and I am the main character, dammit.”

  So—what do you think about that, Mister?

  * Miss

  Hm. I don’t know where that came from.

  Two hours later, Randy, Bonnie, the ficus formerly known as Bob, a few officers from Detective, and I were standing somewhat awkwardly in the lobby of the Detective Building. We were packed and ready—Randy’s magically extended pockets were filled with things we might need in a pinch: Detective-designed bobby pins for picking locks, toothpaste, toothbrushes, a couple of books, snacks, a flashlight, a few guns, a tazer, dynamite, pepper spray, a billy-club, dog chew toys, and at one point—

  “Randy, what are you doing? We can’t bring Bob out there with us!”

  “I just thought that if we’re going to try to fix him, we might need him with us... No? Okay then. I’ll just take a few little…” and with that, he removed the ficus tree from his pocket and tore off a few leaves before placing him down next to a horrified Bonnie.

  In my backpack, I, too, had all things I’d thought could help us without magic. (And yes, I knew that Circe had somehow managed to wield the mysterious magic of the Real World, but I hadn’t had time to figure it out—and we had to go, now.) I had the backstories, of course. I also brought the picture of Jenny I’d drawn, our passports and cash in a large envelope, a list of all the erased characters with their authors and authors’ addresses—at least the ones we could track down, and, of course, chocolate.

  All there was to do was wait.

  The clock on the wall ticked and tocked loudly, as all Fictional clocks tend to do when you’re waiting on something. After approximately 45 ticks and 46 tocks, the first of our motley crew arrived. It was, not surprisingly, Mattie.

  “I see everyone else is late, are they?” she said as soon as the building’s door closed behind her. She was wearing, not her usual somewhat outdated blue floral dress and headband adorned with a red bow, but instead, a pair of dark skinny jeans, a long tank top, and a long-sleeved flannel unbuttoned over it. And her hair was streaked with purple.

  “What?” she snapped. “I thought you told us to wear something that would fit in Out There.”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “No, you look…”

  “Very cool.”

  “Cool, indeed,” added Rogers, a young and rather excitable cop on Randy’s team. He’d just walked in from the hallway, holding a set of keys in his hand. “The van is parked outside, sir. So whenever everyone gets here, we’ll move out.”

  “Thanks, Rogers,” Randy said. He checked his watch. The clock ticked. And tocked.

  “You know, this is why we speed things up around here, usually…”

  But just then, a few more of the crew arrived: Phil, Willy, and Nilly. These, of course, were the dark-headed and freckled triplets from the short-lived series The Adventures of Phil, Willy, and Nilly. They were also sort of vague-friends-by-association of mine since my first year. Usually they were found in rather boxy-shaped shirts of stripes, checks, or polka dots in loud primary colors, paired with blue jeans or overalls, but today they simply wore jeans and T-shirts with words like “IRONIC” and “WHATEVER” printed on them.

  “Where is everyone, then?” Willy (or was it Phil?) said upon walking through the door. He let it close behind him, bumping Phil (Willy?) on the forehead. Nilly came along behind them—her only distinguishing feature was longer hair. Her shirt said “COOL.”

  But even before we could answer, more characters arrived, swinging the door inward, bumping Nilly forward.

  “Oh, hello, hello! Whoopsie. Sorry about that. Hello, all! I’m Geppetto, and this, as you know, is Merlin. And here we have Princess Badroulbadour,” the white-mustached man said. He beamed around the small space, with just about the crinkliest and friendliest eyes I’d ever seen. He was wearing brown pants with suspenders over a worn, white, shirt, a tweed coat draped over his arm. Behind him, Merlin looked only slightly annoyed at having been introduced to a room of people who, no doubt, knew who he was, but a moment later spotted his (great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great) granddaughter, Mattie, and meandered over to her. The final character of their crew was one I’d never seen before, and though resc
uing Jenny, the possible love of my life, was first on my mind, I couldn’t help but noticed how stunning she was. And how little she fit in with the rest of us. She had dark brown skin, and long black shining hair. She wore silky, flowing skirts, a short, strapless blue top, a simple, golden crown with a blue jewel in the center, and a thin, see-through veil draped over her hair.

  “Hello to you all,” Randy said amiably. He shook everyone’s hands as they came in; the space was starting to feel smaller and smaller. Next came in Long John, closely followed by my for-just-a-moment-in-Book-Two-best-friend, Unnamed Ogre. They were both doing their best to blend in with what we knew of the Real World. Long John wore long pants over his fake leg, had lost the pirate hat, and had replaced his long, tattered blue coat with what appeared to be a Ferrari Club Jacket. And the Ogre had donned a baseball cap.

  “Friend,” he said, stomping toward me, bowing his tiny grey head to avoid missing the ceiling.

  With the addition of Ogre and, then, four of the Lost Boys from Peter Pan, space was getting limited. Sandwiched uncomfortably between Ogre and Princess Badroulbadour, I scooched my way toward the front of the room, where there was a bit of open space in front of the door.

  “Hey you guys,” I said, but my voice disappeared in the excited and nervous murmur that had spread through the room. “Hey!” I tried again. A few words trailed here and there, but soon the room was quiet.

  “Thank you all for coming. We’re just waiting for a couple more people now, so I’ll go ahead and give you some information, so we can get going on time.

  “When we get to the wardrobe’s location in Nonfiction, security will be pretty heavy. Since the incident with Alan, Randy has had members from his team guarding the entrance, along with some pretty serious preventative charm work. Now we’ll all be able to get through, because we’re being escorted by Randy. But you won’t be able to go back out there on your own—or come back in. So if we somehow get split up, we’ll need to meet in Narnia at a certain Copyrighted Beaver’s house, like we discussed.

  “Randy and I will be able to use magic throughout Narnia, but not in the Real World. So in case anything happens, we’ll be giving you all a bag of emergency supplies, along with your passports and IDs, money, and phones. We’ll also be giving you your assigned character’s backstory and his or her author’s address, if we have it. Guys, don’t lose these. If these backstories get into the wrong hands, we could have a whole other ? incident. If we don’t have your character’s author’s address, well, it’s up to you to do the research. Out there you’ll be able to use the Real World Internet—it’s way more comprehensive than ours here, which as you know, only includes items mentioned in books. So get to a computer and ask around. Randy and I will help you as much as we can, but first we have to handle Destiny.

  “And finally,” just then the door opened a little ways behind me, letting in a cold blast of air. Kiki slipped in and stood quietly while I finished, tossing her blonde hair around all distractingly. “Uh… yeah. Finally, let’s just be sure to stay in touch out there, guys. We want to make this as fast as possible, because it’s dangerous Out There. The longer you stay, the Realer you get. If you haven’t found your assigned author in one week, you come back to the wardrobe anyway. You’ll be able to get into Narnia without Randy from the Other Side, and can stay there safely until Randy lets you through on this side.”

  “Does anyone have any questions?” Randy called out to the room. He’d made his way forward in the crowd and was standing in front of Ogre.

  “Just one,” a voice said from behind me. Again, I could feel a rush of cold on my backside, but I hadn’t even heard the door open. “When do I get to meet the man who wrote me into being?”

  I turned around, and there was Jenny’s dad. His hair was a bit grayer than the last time I’d seen him, but behind his glasses, his light eyes were shining with determination. I reached out my hand and shook his.

  “Hopefully as soon as we get there, uh…”

  It struck me then that I’d never actually learned Jenny’s parents’ names. Jenny was written without a last name in her series, and her parents were only vaguely mentioned (hence her dad’s somewhat ambiguous description), so it was completely possible they had no names.

  “Call me Jerry, Peter. It’s good to see you,” and he pulled me in for a hug.

  “Good to see you, too.

  “Okay, guys. Let’s get this show on the road.”

  Once everyone was assembled, wearing their best attempts at Real World clothes (Princess Badroulbadour reluctantly donned an extra pair of jeans and a t-shirt Kiki had brought), and each toting a backpack containing their Real World supplies, we trooped one by one and two by two out into the cold rain. As soon as we piled into the elongated van, the sky fell.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “Peter.”

  I closed my eyes tighter, pretending the voice was just a part of my dream. If I could just get back to my dream, I could see how it would all…

  “Peter!” Randy whisper-screamed. When I continued to hold my eyes closed, he shook me by the shoulders. I opened my eyes and found that it was dark; the only light came from the car’s headlights and a few people in the long van who were reading with booklights and flashlights. Randy, Long John, Mattie, and I were nestled comfortably in the first wide seat behind the driver’s. (As you’ve probably guessed, the van had seen a magical spell or two to reach its current dimensions.)

  “What is it, Randy? I was having that weird corridor dream again. I wanted to see how it all turned out…”

  “Read the books, Peter, or just ask him sometime. I woke you because of a book I’m reading: It’s Mein Wissenschaftler. And Peter, I’ve found out some things about our friend, Dr. Albrecht that I think you should know. It could be imperative to your destiny.”

  Just at that moment, one of the car’s wheels sunk deeply into a pothole and—

  And we just kept driving.

  “Oh. Well. I thought that would be much worse.”

  “So did I. At any rate, Peter, have you read these books?”

  I shook my head. As you well know, I much prefer to read nonfiction.

  “I hadn’t either. And what I’ve found is: yes it’s a love story between Anna and her lover, Dedrick—”

  “Who’s Anna?”

  “That’s Destiny’s real name: Anna Albrecht. In addition to being a story of two lovers torn apart by their different beliefs, it’s also Science Fiction. These two were particle physicists in their literary lives and were researching, believe it or not—”

  “Cloning!”

  “No, Peter. I told you before—”

  “Dinosaurs!”

  “Peter, no.”

  “The actual effects of gluten!”

  At this last outburst, Long John stirred from his seated slumber next to me and groggily opened an eye. I wasn’t accustomed to seeing his grizzled face and beard sans pirate hat—the effect was rather unnerving.

  “Good, Long John, you’re up. I was just telling Peter that in reading Dr. Anna Albrecht’s book, I’ve discovered something that might be useful to us. Before Anna and Dedrick split,” (if Long John was lost on this, he didn’t show it and just nodded along) “they were researching ways to transport small physical objects between dimensions. Wormholes! Now by the end of the book, Dr. Albrecht was getting close. She’d discovered a way to, essentially, break apart the particles of an object—something small, like a tennis ball or a cup of tea—and simultaneously, the same exact particles would reappear at a different designated point in space; the other end of the wormhole. They knew they could only create small holes, hence the smaller objects, as to not alter the fabric of space. Or something. The author wasn’t too clear on that.”

  “Probably didn’t wanna do the research,” Long John grumbled.

  “Right. When it looked like she and Dedrick might finally have done it, Dedrick told her he could no longer live a lie. His heart was no longer in science, and in fact, he’d
fallen in love with some sort of artist. They say the Real World author was going through something of a personal crisis, and in later years, they played it off on a cultural commentary on the importance of the arts over science.

  “Whatever the reason, though, Dedrick left her and broke her heart. The book ends with her packing away the lab; she’s moving away, moving on. But science has lost—she’s alone and bitter.”

  “Yeah, moving away and moving on to the Real World, where she probably thought there wouldn’t be such ‘silliness.’ She was very proud to call herself a real scientist when I saw her. She hates the book world. And even Purple Fiddlebum Day…”

  “So what you’re sayin’ here is that the Book World and the Real World are, what, two different dimensions?” Long John cut in. “That she’s created some sorta portal between them, other than the wardrobes?”

  “Could be,” Randy whispered, leaning in closer. Most of the reading lights had been clicked off and here and there people were snoring. We moved silently down the road, headlights lighting the way and ending in blackness. “It would certainly explain the appearance of the note on the other side of the wardrobe and the serum that transformed Alan and Bob. The only question left is who’s on the receiving end in the Book World. Who is helping her?”

  We sat in silence, the weight of the question pressing in on us like something physical. Every now and then, the van swerved or jolted up and over another pothole or bump in the road. There were no other cars making the long drive east toward Nonfiction. It must have been at least three in the morning.

  “Well, I guess we can just ask her,” I finally said. “She does like to talk.”